Endings
by the ticking clock
Summary: The Doctor hates endings.


**Inspired by faith-and-serentity's story, And This Is How It Ends. **

He sees her everywhere.

He sees her in the red of the earth's autumn leaves, in the glorious hue of the rainbow, in a child's laugh, in the fresh smell of dust after rain, in a picture of a happy young couple in a shop window...

It's going to drive him mad.

River isn't much help. She comes to him sometimes a women who knows her parents, other times a witty young archeologists, and sometimes a sad professor.

_Professor._

He's going to lose her soon too, his beautiful, _amazing _wife. She's going to go to the Library, as he always knew she would.

And then he will truly be alone.

The Ponds haunt him, rip at his hearts until he's not quite sure how they're still beating anymore. He keeps Amy's letter tucked up in his breast pocket, the paper crinkles over his hearts when he walks, her words burning and searing deeper into his skin, the ink fading against the tweed of his jacket. He takes it out, sometimes, runs his hands over it, reads it, memorizes it.

_This is the story of Amelia Pond, and this is how it ends. _

He hasn't been to see Brian, not yet. Even the mere thought of stepping out of his TARDIS to face the man he had promised and telling him that...that...

He stops the thought before it fully forms, because if he thinks about it his eyes will sting and his chest will tighten, and he can't cry now.

But this is his Ponds. His sweet, glorious Ponds. Amelia, with her fiery hair and a temper to match, with her comforting hugs and her gentle words. The way she waved the gun at Mercy, the way she knew exactly what to say to make him laugh. Rory, with his shy shrug and a smile, his exasperation, his devotion to his wife, his bravery...

He misses them so much it _aches. _

Some days he thinks he's just starting to accept that they are gone, but then he'll see a young girl telling her mom about her imaginary friend, and his throat will close up.

_Raggedy Man..._He can almost hear his little Amelia whisper her special name for him in his ear, and his eyes will sting and he'll have to turn away.

Or he'll see a husband stumble and catch his wife's hand and he'll think of Rory, and think of how Amy would throw her head back and laugh and laugh and laugh...

But he owes it to them, those amazing Ponds, to move on. He owes it to them, the humans who waited so long for him, but in the end chose each other(together, as they should be) to find someone else to travel with.

But how can he? How can he grin and drop out of the sky and pick up another human? Amelia is seared into his hearts, her laugh and her touch painted across his chest, her fierce _scottish _temper, the feeling of her in his arms, her giggle tickling his ears, her eye rolls when Rory did something ridiculous...

This face, this childish(face of a twelve year old) eleventh face doesn't know how to handle this emotion. He cries and tries to laugh and it comes out choked. He puts up a mask, but this face betrays him and crumples every time someone mentions fish fingers or custard.

He is the Doctor. He always will be.

But he will never again be the Raggedy Man, who dropped out of the sky in a box that says police and he will never again eat fish fingers and custard with a little lonely scottish girl with a big imagination. Those days are over. Gone.

But their story is written across the universe-burned into the stars. Stories of vampires and whales and pirates. Stories of angels and painters and kindness. Stories of little girls in astronaut suites and the silence. Stories of laughter and wonder and love. Stories of a man who spent 2,000 years guarding a box. Stories of a little girl who waited fourteen years for her imaginary friend to come back for her.

So he needs to move on. He needs to straighten his bow tie, step into his TARDIS and leave this place. Leave for a little while. and go find another planet to save.

The Doctor hates endings.

After an ending, though, there is a beginning. And he needs to find it. Find it and not travel alone, for the sakes of The Girl Who Waited and the Last Centurion. For his Ponds. They would have wanted it.

So he takes a deep breath, reads Amy's letter one more time, cries one last time, and dries the tears. He takes off his jacket, fixes his bow tie, buys a fez, and steps into his TARDIS.

_Don't travel alone, Doctor._

He rests his hands against the console, feels her vibrate under his fingertips, gently.

"okay," He whispers to her, and it is just the two of them again, a boy and his magical box, off to see the universe, "where do I need to go this time?"

The TARDIS hums, low and steady, and then the wibbly lever is pushed down and they are flying through time and space, and quite suddenly he is laughing.

He thinks of Amelia, her wild shrieks as the TARDIS would take off, how her fingers gripped his. He thinks of Rory, falling backwards and laughing too, looking at Amy the entire time as if she was the center of his universe.

_Bye, Bye Ponds. _

Next stop everywhere.


End file.
